As background of the invention it must be recorded that in modern designs of motor vehicle automatic transmissions, the electronic components for transmission control are increasingly integrated into the transmission. The motivation for this is the higher reliability and lower costs of this type of design which is based on doing away with electrical and mechanical connections.
The previous normal design for automatic transmissions included the actuators such as the electro hydraulic pressure control and the sensors e.g. for recording the rotational speed, pressure, position of the selector lever, temperature of the transmission oil etc., in or on the transmission, where they were fitted separately from each other. The electronic control of the transmission installed outside and away from the transmission was then connected to the actuators and sensors via cables and connectors. Therefore, costly individual couplings were made between the inputs and outputs of the control and the corresponding actuators and sensors.
In the case of a mechatronic transmission arrangement, the actual electronic control that as a rule includes a microcontroller and a corresponding memory, and the sensors for recording actual conditions and parameters of the transmission are fitted jointly in a housing. This mechatronic component is then mounted in the transmission casing when the transmission is assembled, whereby the above-mentioned connection work between the sensors and the transmission arrangement is omitted. In an especially simple way in terms of manufacturing and in an especially robust way in terms of assembly, the electronic components of the transmission arrangement, on the one hand and the sensors on the other hand can be arranged with their wiring to the transmission control on a common printed circuit board in the mechatronic component.
Usually at least one position sensor is now located in the mechatronic component which serves to determine the position of a specific transmission part. Therefore, it is for example of the utmost importance for the reliable and failure-free operation of a transmission, that, by means of a sensor, the position of a relocatable transmission part such as the selector lever manually actuated by the driver or the hydraulic manual switch valve of the transmission is determined exactly. As a result, the positioning of the sensor relative to the transmission is decisive for the accuracy of determining the position. These problems arise equally in sensors in either a rotary or a linear alignment. Even for sensors, for example, for recording the rotational speed of the transmission, an accurate positioning of the sensor relative to the transmission mechanics is important for safe and reliable functioning.
Previously the sensors were adjusted in non-mechatronic arrangements via their mounting points (as a rule) on the transmission casing. It was then also necessary to adjust all the sensors individually and separately from one another in their positions, which of course involved a considerable amount of work. Therefore, only the position sensors had to be adjusted individually for recording the driving mode set on the transmission by detecting the corresponding position of the manually actuated selector lever after each fitting to the transmission in such a way that the electrical output signal of the sensors corresponds to the mechanically set driving mode in each case.